Study: Political parties score more votes when more women are on the ballot

Political parties score more votes when more women are on the ballot, study shows

(Image credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

published 6 April 2015

Democracies are running out of excuses as to why they don't elect more women.

A new study analyzing municipal elections in Spain found that parties that increased their ballot's representation of female candidates by 10 percent over the opposition saw a 4.2 percent gain at the ballot box. That equals a 20-vote switch per 1,000 votes cast. The analysis, co-authored by MIT economist Albert Saiz, comes a decade after Spain updated municipal election laws to require that women fill at least 40 percent of the slots on political parties' electoral lists.